"It’s often hard to draw a line between men and monsters. Now, a silver blade will work

wonders on most monsters, cut clean through their hides like they weren't there. But inmy line of work, all too easy for an angry mob to come after you. That's what the steel blade is for."

- Lambert of Adaith, Witcher of MorhenOnce a prosperous group, the witchers of Morhen have fallen on hard times. A guild of human monster-hunters that use permanent and temporary alchemical augmentationand simple invocations to augment their blade work, at their height the witchers trainedboys from a young age into warriors without compare

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warriors bent on but two things

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earning coin by slaying monsters, and staying alive long enough to use it.Over the years, the rise of the common adventurer has forced the witchers into decline.Usually less expensive per head, and with morals more palatable to the average society,the adventuring party has undercut the witchers in the monster-slaying market. Withtheir occupations risk to reward ration worsening by the year, the guild lost manymembers to beasts, and many more to a shrinking pool of recruits.For the past hundred years, the guild has been undergoing changes just to survive. Nowwilling to take women in as well as individuals above the age of six, the guild isbeginning to see a resurgence as monsters spread across the land again and more andmore members abandon the lone wolf mentality of older members.

BECOMING A WITCHER

Joining the Witcher

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s is neither an easy nor pleasant process. All candidates must showskill with both the sword and some minor innate arcane skill. If their prowess seemsample, they must run the Gauntlet

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a small maze filled with some of the more common

beasts they might face in their work, ended with a duel with one of the guild’s existing

members. The prospective witcher is not expected to best their opponent, merely holdtheir ground for variable amount of time.Following this, the candidate then undergoes the Trial of the Grasses, the torturous andpotentially fatal alchemical process that changes them from human to witcher. Once a

candidate has survived all these tests, then they may begin training at the guild’s

headquarters of Kaer Morhen or other such settlement in your campaign setting.

Witchers in the Dungeons and Dragon's Universe

It seems that no matter where you go, there's always some sort of monster or beastcausing some village some amount of grief. By this token, a Witcher would never have alack of employment.The problem is, a Witcher isn't the only one attempting to get the job done. There's alsothat Wizard and three-to-five of their very best friends roaming through and wiping outthe goblin camp.As one can imagine, even Witchers may accept that perhaps splitting the coin of a job ismuch better than getting no coin at all.There are two basic settings for the Witcher in your DnD Campaign setting

Witchers are in a prominent position

Being a Witcher is a prestigious honor. Mal'ver the Wizard and his cadre do their share of helping, but once they kill a few goblin camps, they're suddenly too good to keep doingit and leave said villages.While a Witcher may take on greater hunts, the witcher themselves represents the entireguild that still has Witchers going about, slaying monsters for coin, and doing so withefficiency. Though still intimidating, Witchers can expect a more or less friendly responseand perhaps even discounts for accommodations and supplies during their hunts.It is not uncommon at all for adventurers to encounter Witchers as both an NPC and PC.They're easily recognizable both from appearance and local knowledge. Witchers willoften be called upon to deal with large scale threats.The Witchers Guild building is comparable to a mighty fortress that a Witcher can returnto, either for a short respite or because they are summoned for a specific hunt.

Witchers are a necessary 'evil'

Witchers are regarded with suspicion. In a world where communing with demons anddevils is all too common, the appearance of a witcher and any knowledge of theirpractice and imbibing of mutagenics is a cause for concern.They are tolerated at best, especially since they take the jobs that cowardly, or perhapswise, adventurers will pass on. Only a scant few remain in any area of the world, stayingin touch through code and occasionally congregating if one of them finds a hunt thatthey cannot do alone.Local knowledge of Witchers tend to vary from inaccurate to fantastically inaccurate.Appearance, practices, goals, motivations, it is rare for anyone to understand or careabout what it is a Witcher represents. Stumbling upon a Witcher is a rare occurrence,and will almost completely be within the boundaries of a bounty for monsters.The witcher's 'guild' exists, but at best has a small building in a city or town where theyhave helped numerous times. It will probably be in a state of poor repair.

Playing a Witcher

Witchers tend to gravitate towards being a neutral alignment. Though they are apowerful organization (assuming the setting allows such), Witchers tend to be solitary orpreferring to work in smaller groups, and tend to try and disengage from the politics.That said, Witchers do have their own identities, but most of them spent their earlyyears training alongside other Witchers. It is not uncommon for Witchers to share manyof the same views with one another.A witcher going out of his way to smite all evil in the world (In the manner of a Paladinor other such good aligned classes) is equally as uncommon as the one setting out toconquer or just mindlessly maim anyone (Like Belkar.) However, given enough personaltrauma, or enough influence and incentive, it is not unimaginable that a Witcher mightput their skills to other uses that don't involve hunting down a Hell Hound.Witchers, due to their mutations, age much slower than others of their race, andadvance age categories at 50% the normal rate.